Chapter 141: The Bomb Was Armed in the Middle of the Colony

Raven felt several nearby signatures change.

They weren’t fully awake, but they were alert now.

The juvenile slowly lowered its head, and after another minute of waiting, the group was able to continue.

When they finally left the chamber behind, Deren whispered, "I could have killed it."

"Yes."

"Then why stop me?"

Raven looked at him.

"Because our entire mission is preventing a chain reaction. Killing something that doesn’t need to die just because you have a weapon in your hand would be a remarkably stupid way to start one."

Deren accepted the answer.

Valeria said nothing, but Raven noticed her watching him.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"That word is starting to mean too many things when you say it."

Valeria smiled.

"I’m learning."

The second charge was exactly where Maelor had expected it, positioned at a narrow junction between two galleries that connected directly to several older chambers.

This one was larger and considerably more complicated.

Keller Ridge had drilled six points around a stone column and linked smaller charges to a central activator. The device wasn’t designed to create one massive explosion. It only needed to destroy the support.

The mountain would do the rest.

Sila needed almost ten minutes to disable it.

During that time, Raven counted three Burrowers moving behind a thin wall and heard another digging somewhere above them. No one spoke, and no one moved more than necessary.

When the final crystal went dark, Sila rested her forehead against the wall.

"Two."

Maelor looked toward the descending tunnel.

"Old Pressure Gallery is below us."

Raven checked his mana reserves.

He still had enough, but he had no intention of using Burst Step inside these tunnels unless it became absolutely necessary. It created too much noise and magical disturbance, and there was always the possibility of appearing directly on top of something Predation hadn’t detected quickly enough.

Valeria seemed to be restraining herself for the same reason. Small droplets of blood hovered around her fingers, ready to respond, but she hadn’t shaped them into weapons.

They had entered Bore Twelve prepared to fight.

Now they were doing everything possible to avoid one.

Raven preferred it that way.

A good fight happened when he chose the conditions, not when thirty subterranean creatures decided the entire tunnel needed to kill him.

Old Pressure Gallery was much deeper than Raven had expected.

The human excavation ended first. From there, they descended through an abandoned Burrower tunnel, crossed a partially flooded chamber, and reached an old ladder that Sila assured them didn’t exist on any official map.

She inspected the fresh marks around its supports.

"Keller Ridge added this."

"To reach the charge?"

"Probably."

Maelor pressed a hand against the wall.

"We’re close to the main conduit."

Raven already knew.

The pressure shifted with every breath he took. His ears tightened slightly, then released again, as though the air itself were circulating through the lungs of something enormous.

FORGE began reacting more frequently.

[Pressure Chamber Signature Detected.]

[Additional Signature Detected.]

More notifications followed.

Raven dismissed them.

He didn’t need another count.

Thirty-one had already convinced him.

Eventually, they reached a narrow opening overlooking Old Pressure Gallery.

Raven stopped.

The chamber beyond was enormous, not a mining gallery but a natural cavern that generations of Burrowers had reshaped into part of their colony.

Rounded conduits entered from every direction. Some were barely large enough for a person to crawl through, while others could accommodate creatures much larger than anything Raven had seen so far.

Dozens of cavities covered the walls, and many of them were occupied. Raven could make out armored plates, claws, and bodies partially buried in stone.

There were too many to count quickly.

Valeria moved up beside his shoulder and, wisely, didn’t ask for a number.

Maelor pointed toward the opposite side of the cavern.

The charge was there.

Even from this distance, it was easy to see. It was much larger than the previous two, a structure of metal and crystal secured against a section of wall where several pressure conduits converged.

Exactly the worst place anyone could have chosen.

Sila breathed very slowly.

"We have to cross."

Raven studied the terrain.

There were routes between the Burrowers: elevated stone, shallow depressions, and natural platforms that could keep them away from some of the occupied cavities.

"Then we cross."

Maelor looked at him as though waiting for the rest.

"But?"

"There is no but. It’s just going to be unpleasant."

Valeria tilted her head.

"That was surprisingly optimistic."

"I’m working on my conversational skills."

She almost smiled.

They crossed one section at a time, waiting for slow pressure releases to mask their movement and avoiding every loose stone they could identify.

Raven used Mana Sense as little as possible. He didn’t want to flood the cavern with magical activity when Predation could perform most of the detection for him.

One adult Burrower rested less than six meters from their path.

[Blastback Burrower — Level 22 — AWAKENED.]

Its Pressure Chamber might have been useful for another purpose, but not for the rifle.

Raven didn’t consider killing it.

Another adult was half-buried in the wall nearby.

Level Twenty-Five.

A juvenile slept behind it.

Then something much larger exhaled from a lower tunnel.

FORGE reacted sharply.

[High-Capacity Pressure Chamber Detected.]

[Compatibility Estimate—]

Raven closed the notification before it could finish.

Not now.

Valeria noticed.

"Was that the one you want?"

"Something good is close."

"And you’re ignoring it."

"Until the city stops being one explosion away from becoming a quarry."

She studied him for a moment.

"That’s new too."

Raven kept walking.

"Don’t start."

They reached the charge.

Sila crouched beside it first, and Raven saw recognition replace the concentration on her face.

"What?"

She didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, she touched one of the crystals with a tool.

A reddish light traveled through the circuit, disappeared, then returned in a steady pulse.

Cold settled into Raven’s stomach.

"It’s active."

Maelor moved closer.

"How long?"

"I don’t know yet."

Sila removed a protective cover.

Beneath it was a more complex alchemical circle than either of the previous devices. Several small crystals were going dark one by one while the central circuit grew progressively brighter.

It was a timer, but not one measured in seconds.

It measured accumulated energy.

Valeria crouched beside her.

"Can you stop it?"

Sila examined the channels.

"If I sever the wrong one, it detonates."

"That wasn’t the question."

"I’m trying to make the answer yes."

Raven examined the mechanism with FORGE.

[Active Pressure-Fracture Device Detected.]

[Energy Accumulation: 83%.]

[Primary Interruption Route: UNRESOLVED.]

[Catastrophic Discharge Possible Upon Incorrect Disconnection.]

The next pulse increased the accumulation to eighty-four percent.

Raven looked around the cavern.

Sleeping Burrowers filled the surrounding walls and tunnels, while an active explosive sat directly inside the colony’s pressure network.

"How long?" Maelor asked.

Sila shook her head.

"Minutes. Maybe less."

The charge reached eighty-five percent.

Valeria looked at Raven.

"Can FORGE disable it?"

"It can tell me what the components do. It hasn’t mapped a safe interruption route."

At eighty-six percent, Sila moved one of her tools toward the circuit.

Raven caught her wrist.

"Wait."

"We don’t have time."

"Exactly."

The charge climbed to eighty-seven percent while FORGE continued mapping the channels.

There were too many connections.

This wasn’t an ordinary mining charge. It had been designed so that disabling one section wouldn’t necessarily stop the detonation.

Redundancy.

Raven knew the philosophy.

He hated being on this side of it.

At eighty-eight percent, a deep vibration passed through the cavern and several Burrowers shifted inside their resting cavities.

Valeria slowly turned her head.

"Raven."

"I know."

The device reached eighty-nine percent.

Sila stared at the crystals.

"I can try severing the accumulator."

"Probability."

"I don’t have one."

"Give me a bad one."

"Half."

Raven glanced toward the route they had used to enter the cavern.

Too far.

The charge reached ninety percent.

Then the pattern changed.

Instead of climbing to ninety-one, the entire alchemical circle ignited at once.

Sila went pale.

"No."

Raven looked at the interface.

[Detonation Sequence Initiated.]

The percentage disappeared, replaced by repeated pulses that began arriving faster with each cycle.

Maelor looked at Sila.

"Can you stop it?"

She didn’t answer.

That was enough.

Raven stood.

Valeria watched him.

"What do we do?"

Another pulse flashed through the device, brighter than the last.

Movement spread through the colony around them as biological signatures began appearing across Predation in rapid succession.

One became five.

Five became twelve.

More followed.

Raven looked at Maelor, then Sila, then Valeria.

There was no longer enough time to walk back the way they had come.

"Run."